Kwame Kilpatrick shames Detroit...again

It was before my time but Detroit once was the bright shining City upon the hill. It was the embodiment of industry, progress and the American dream.

Unfortunately, during my life Detroit has been plagued with abandonment, crime and poverty. It has sat and decayed along with symbols of the past like Tiger Stadium. It was the murder capitol of the country for some time and residents continue to flock towards the door seeking a more peaceful suburban lifestyle.

It hasn't been all bad, along with the bad in recent times there has been some good. There has been reinvestment, especially in the downtown area. The Detroit Institute of Art had a significant restoration. General Motors moved in to the City's iconic ren-cen and casinos brought in a demographic that otherwise would not frequent the old City.

When Kwame Kilpatrick was elected for his first term in 2001 he was the one to bring Detroit to into the new century. He came from a family of leaders and had already served in the State House of Representatives. From almost the beginning his administration was plagued with scandal, largely uncovered by some admittedly
"ambulance chaser" style reporting, specifically by WXYZ Channel 7 in Detroit and even more specifically by Steve Wilson (see picture below right- good looking cat, no?). It has seemed for some time in this area that Steve Wilson's job was to harass the Mayor but time and time again the media discovered more and more questionable activity to which the Mayor did not fully respond. From "wild" parties at the Manoogian Mansion to inappropriate use of benefits and City money.

Detroit and Kwame are once again in the news because of the latest and most serious allegations of perjury; a serious charge for a mayor, even more so for a LAWYER. In a whistle blowers case filed by former Detroit Police employees Kwame and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty lied about an affair and numerous sexually charged text messages. Lying about an affair is one thing but because of the way events unfolded it's plausible that covering up the affair may have had a real affect on the City. After the wrongfully dismissed cops were awarded millions of dollars, instead of appealing a settlement was reached for MORE than the money awarded to the officers in the case. After this happens we all learn that Kilpatrick and Beatty lied about the text messages on the stand in the case.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Detroit. In fact, most people in the area have a soft spot in their heart for the City but the residents are getting exactly what they deserve. In the 2005 election their was a perfectly viable candidate in Freeman Hendrix but in a close race the voters proved they fear change and progress and prefer scandal and drama.

So let Kwame do what he will, he is who he is and obviously NOTHING will change that.

It's still sad though, to look to the East of Ann Arbor to see the rot that is this administration turn the lights back out on the dream.

Tracking your blog readers old and new

My love for Google continues to grow. Sure they are Big Brother but when they provide the services they do, it seems worth it.

In my perusing (I MUST stop using that word so much), I come across a ton of features, widgets, add-ons and tools and when I find one I think you can't live without, I let you know.

I just started using Google Analytics which is a tool to help web developers and bloggers keep track of their visitors and their stats. I also use feedburner (Google owned- go figure) whose feed flare provides lots of stats but Google Analytics provides even more information and has it organized in an intuitive manner than only Google can pull off. A simple copy and paste of a code snippet is all you need to be tracking everything you want to know about your visitors. It's like google is letting you be big brother to all your visitors, allowing you to target your content (sound familiar).

It will even integrate with your Adords account (how convenient).

So for all you beginner and novice bloggers out there. Get a Goolge account and start using Google Analytics.

Let me know what you think.

The Government Wishes to Employ your Id or "Free Money"

Yes, the Government wants YOU to go buy some crap you don't need. They want you to buy something so bad they're even going to send you a check to do it. Their hope is that by funding your impulse buys, the economy will be jump started. Whatever their reasoning, this is cool by me.

I'm still having trouble grasping the full impacts of this stimulus plan but I'll leave the worrying for someone else, I just want to get that check so I can get an iPhone.

I was pleased to see the Dem's willingness to curb increases in welfare spending. I suppose this is the ultimate, stealing from the poor who were given money by the ones who stole from the rich to give it to them (think about it for just a second, read it again if you must, but it makes sense), play. Once again I am reminded that I need to finish the book Ivanhoe.

So I'm thinking iPhone, perhaps a Playstation 3, maybe a video camera.

What are you gonna get? And don't tell me put it in savings, after all, thats not what this is for!

Samson the Youtube star

I've had a Youtube "account" for some time now. Until now, however, I hadn't uploaded any videos. Tonight Amy and I were playing with Samson (our chihuahua-pomeranian mix) and commenting on how he has noticeably grown. We hadn't taken any pictures of him since the first week or so and I suggest we take a few. I took a few snapshots and a short video and thought it would be a good idea to upload it on youtube. It's not anything exciting but it accomplished two things; you get to see Samson in action and I got to upload a youtube vid.



The vid's don't do him justice, his face isn't so dark. He's a cutie. I still can't believe I let Amy talk me in to getting one :)

Irate Gamer vs. Angry Video Game Nerd

Last week I was introduced to a series of videos that I thought was absolutely hilarious by someone calling himself the Irate Gamer. The videos include swearing and original Nintendo games - all the ingredients for fun! Growing up in the 80's and early 90's, anything so retro and old school is sure to be a winner in my book. The Irate Gamer has produced about 24 or so videos reviewing games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. His videos are available on youtube and he even has his own site. There is even a DVD available now with some of his videos.

His videos wanted me to break out an old NES and make my own videos. After all they must have been a blast to make. I'm even seriously considering buying one of his dvd's just to support him so he'll keep making funny videos. I wish I had thought of this idea. But was he really the one who created this genre?

Today as I was perusing the internet on my day off I came across someone who calls himself the Angry Nintendo Nerd. I noticed he also has a number of videos available and many of them are even reviewing the same game. He has his own video and webpage too. Interesting.

I watched two of the Angry Nintendo Nerds videos, one on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and one of Back to the Future. After watching the first it was clear plagiarism came in to play. After watching the second it became clear that the plagiarism was BLATANT. I mean, the same jokes, the same order, everything.

Take a look at the videos to see for yourself.

Irate Gamer
Back to the Future
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Angry Nintendo Nerd
Back to the Future
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Its no doubt that both of these guys are funny but who should get the credit? Who should you support? Who came first?

I found that there were some people that thought irate gamer came first and others that thought Angry Nintendo Nerd who has changed his name to Angry Video Game Nerd was first. After five minutes though I was convinced that AVGN was probably first. Just in comparing the videos I would guess that the Irate Gamer was the one who took the idea and tried to refine it.

The first video I found claims to be from a confession letter Irate Gamer sent to AVGNSee the video.

I did think it was interesting that the two videos I happened to watch were the exact two that were used in the plagiarism accusation video.

What I can't find is any convincing evidence that Angry Video Game Nerd is actually the plagiarist.

The more I see the more it looks like case closed. In fact I'm ready to call it.

Below are some links to some other videos about the plagiarism.

An AOL video from Dailymotion (there is still AOL?)
JesseMeza's VLOG

It looks like Chris Bores, the Irate Gamer has become quite a hated internet d-list celeb.

What pisses me off about this is that he has been able to profit from this plagiarism by selling DVD's and t-shirts. It's one thing to mimic someones idea but he is stealing in some instances word by word descriptions. Maybe pisses me off is the wrong description. Maybe I'm jealous because he appears to be getting away with it.

I am surprised to see plagiarism so blatant. Even though I'm mad about it, I find myself watching both of them. Despite having videos that are so close, both of them are funny. I'd love to rip Bores a new one and have a nice irate blog about him, but thats not gonna do anything. He's been exposed, thats good enough for me.

What do you think of this plagiarism?

MLK day

Well, its another 3 day weekend for me. When you get about 40 days off per year they are bound to come with relative frequency. I wasn't able to do anything too exciting this weekend so I'm really going to focus on relaxing today.

Saturday was pizza at my moms to celebrate my sisters birthday and yesterday was spent sick with Amy. She had a sore throat, I just felt queezy for the second half of the day. Since that was the case it was really nice not to have to get up and go to work this morning. In stead I get to chase after Samson all day while Amy is at work in the D.

I bought the Google Sketch up for dummies book at Barnes and Noble (BKS) yesterday. Aside from it just looking cool I would love to be proficient enough at it to use it at work. While an interest in learning as much as one can about the profession may not be a marketable quality at work, knowing how to do little things like Google SketchUp always seem to impress. Any time there is a free software or programming tools available I am tempted to learn about them. Thats why I have an HTML book (really is that easy) and a Ruby programming book (not as easy as I was expecting).

So hopefully I'll find a "Mythbusters" marathon on tv. If not I've got two full seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation to choose from!

I starter another blog where I am beginning to "collect" funny/amazing youtube videos. In addition to dropping by at my youtube blog, if you have any good videos, please share them by leaving me a comment on that blog. I hope you'll get a laugh when you go there.

We Don't Make Widgets

This morning, much to my dismay I awoke 30 minutes early so I could get to work early enough to car pool another hour to a two hour training session called "Making Government Better".

This already sounds fun, no?

This afternoon, much to my surprise I find myself still thinking about the principles the speaker discussed.

The speaker Ken Miller (right- yea thats not a picture of me), used an interesting quote to describe government:

"Government is a bunch of hard working people trapped in dysfunctional systems producing invisible things for people who do not want them, on behalf of others that do, for reasons we can rarely articulate much less measure"

For those of you who have ever worked in government, isn't that great?
For those of you that haven't you're probably thinking "Hard Working?"

The biggest part I got out of the seminar was that we focus on what we produce for customers (yes government and its employees has customers), and that we focus on meeting their needs as we create them. These things we produce are referred to as "widgets" and we need to work to make the widgets the best we can to achieve the best result. However, in government, the best result is not profit, its some other measure- well being, healthy citizens, great and friendly services.

One of the challenges was to figure out what widgets your agency produces - pretty easy. Next was to figure out what widgets you produce. Not as easy, especially sitting next to your boss. I was pretty embarrassed that I couldn't just start spitting out widget after widget I'm responsible for. I kept thinking, but what I do is different, I make things that FEED our widgets. I feel like the BASF of the agency, I don't make the products you love, I make the products you love better. (Again I'd like to give myself a pat on the back for that analogy. I haven't come up with one that good since my reference to Willy Wonka's hate for wangdoodles.) The point is, I'm hiding behind the same "but I'm different" argument government has for years.

So now, I'm back at my desk preparing for a relatively important conference call tomorrow actually trying to make sense of what Ken Miller was talking about today. I'm actually trying to figure out what it is I do, what I produce and how I can do it better for the customer. I guess this was a valuable session after all.

While the link that comes next isn't exactly related to what I learned today, its pretty close. It's perhaps a touch corny but a good story. I stole this link from ROTUS.

http://www.stservicemovie.com/

Where are you sunshine?

I guess its that time of year, the good news is that it gets better from here.

1. Michigan winters suck. I hate being cold. Its fun to talk about the prospects of an NFL playoff game in 4 degree weather but is less fun to experience.

2. Its dark when I get up and its dark when I drive home. At least we are on the happy side of the winter solstice.

3. Getting used to a puppy is harder than I thought. Every spare minute is spent making sure he is not either peeing, pooping, eating foam or finding something the vacuum didn't pick up.

4. I'm in the middle of back to back 5 day work weeks. While Monday is Martin Luther King Day (in the North at least) when you get about 40 days off per year, the 5 day week-ers are rough! (Maybe this one is a positive)

5. I haven't read a book in 6 weeks. I've talked about my reading cycles before, this part of the cycle is always the worst.

6. Have you seen the stock market? If you haven't, you'd better not look.

Like I said, in all of these cases it will only get better. Amy's new internship at the Detroit Regional Chamber has started off well and she is only 3 months away from graduation. With all the frustrations that come to me during this time of year, the fact that I am doing so well is something I'm very excited about!

So I apologize for the recent neglect of my blog and those of my FMB buddies. Don't worry , I'm still here.

How's this winter treating you?

Goodbye 2007, Hello Samson

While I was expecting my Christmas break to be nothing but relaxing between the occasional family visit, it turned out to be much busier and more eventful than I ever could have expected.

Amy and I are lucky in that we both live close to our immediate families; within 40 minutes of everyone. It was very nice that despite 3 trips in a week to her dad's house, traveling time was hardly an issue.

The real news came early though as Amy finally, somehow convinced me to get a dog with her. I had been convinced that our space was not conducive to dog ownership despite the fact that our community is filled with dogs. For whatever reason, I became convinced otherwise and on the Saturday before Christmas we got Samson, a Pomeranian and Chihuahua mix.

The four pounder is a ball of energy. He has been a challenge; on no fewer than two medications, FREQUENT bathroom needs as well as common accidents on the carpet. Fortunately those accidents are pretty easy to clean up and we haven't had one of the....thicker accidents since the first few days. We are still waiting to get him up to 100% health wise which he apparently thinks he already is judging by his rambunctiousness. So, while a challenge, lots of fun too. The other good news to this is that Samson and our cat Sasha seem to get along pretty well although they chase each other everywhere.

And so I say hello to 2008 with high hopes and welcome its challenges.